this is what happens when you have nothing going on your life that you need to constantly focus on what is going in other's lifes, add the over fixation on hobbies and you get this beautiful rant from people who think playing souls-like is a sustitute for a personality.
I know a guy who discovered video games during his retirement. He always play on easy mode and yet he had a great time playing through the Mass Effect trilogy, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, etc. He just wants to be the hero in the story without having to deal with the mechanics.
Well, it is. Enemies can steal items and gain immunity to damage types and so on. Though I don't see how that would change the overall experience so much to warrant any kind of outrage. DAO is mostly about the story and world building anyway.
I think a reviewer that only plays all games on easy isn't really equipped to talk about a game, but it doesn't really matter if they just can't finish it, that's their level as a player. It is slightly disingenous for him to say it's about the total hours put into a game, anyone can struggle through a hard game, that is true, learning a games mechanics doesn't take 100 hours. Anyone getting annoyed at me for that feel free, I actually don't care. I'm in support of easy modes and all that, but I have a job too lol, and it's not professional video game streamer.
@@Spaced92 counterpoint; If the reviewer is transparent about their experience (I.E. started at normal, turned it down to easy midway) then it's your job as a consumer of said review to sift through "valid and invalid" criticism of the game. "Game was too hard for me" - tells you something about their engagement with the systems, or how user friendly the systems are. "Story was great" - is completely separate from the difficulty choice.
To be fair, when it is stat changes that could also mean that you need less strategy to beat the content, and that can make the game less engaging. There are valid reasons for people to enjoy higher difficulty in games, it isn't just people trying to flex their pp or whatever.
I strongly recommend against people playing Enemy Within or War Of The Chosen on lower difficulties than the second-highest because it's not "the same game but easier" it's a pretty radically different experience, in some ways isn't actually easier, and in a few ways actually makes the game take fucking LONGER to play. I would never say anyone should ever play Half Life on Hard because why the hell would you play Half Life of all things where almost every single enemy can instakill you? That's just pointless.
As an adult, I cannot imagine wasting my free time or emotional energy to get upset with a stranger over the game difficulty they play on. Bizarre stuff.
The reality is a lot of it is clearly performative anger to try and look like they have the biggest penis out there. Like all the people that lie about using summons in FromSoft games or how quickly they beat Celeste or Super Meat Boy. Play on whatever difficulty you find fun, because that's what we're all really here for: FUN. If you play games to stroke you weak ego, find another hobby.
And cleaner dishes. Most dishwashers tend to miss some shit at a higher rate than handwashed (unless whoever's washing them by hand is a complete dongle, _Jared_ ), so maybe that's a bad analogy to use.
My problem with this whole thing is that one of his complaints was difficulty. If that wasn't something that he had an issue with, then I wouldn't care. But his choice of party, choice of equipment, and ignoring one of the core mechanics of the game (magical primers) are what made the game difficult, not the difficulty choices and he was blaming the difficulty for his poor choices.
Back when I played Dragon Age Origins I was struggling with the default difficulty so I decided to play on easy instead. Ended up playing through the whole game and it's DLCs and really enjoying it, I've never regretted that decision once.
NGL I actually decided to play dragon age origin before watching his video. I got to the woods where you go out to get the blood and contracts. It was fine until I hit that bridge with the one mage enemy and I just had to drop difficulty down to easy. It was so much bullshit as the mage runs away, you chase it into traps, while it nuke my party with some fire balls. At this point I can do nothing to counter it because my party is set and I have no access to most of the game mechanics. This is just like one of those terrible game design moments.
@kopicat2429 I like a decent challenge sometimes but not always. I agree with you that the thing I enjoy most about RPGs is the story so if combat has to be eased up a bit so be it.
This is why I really appreciate something I've seen in some RPGs where you can set a separate difficulty level for normal encounters and boss fights. I want boss fights to be hard, but hard normal encounters can just become a slog sometimes.
Sounds like a design flaw if regualr battle are tedious on hard but boss battles are fine. To be fair most games have phased out the need for exces normal encounters (for grinding/leveling for bosses ect).
I played The Witcher 2 on Dark (even though it's apparently not the hardest difficulty) and I'm proud for being able to come up with cheese strats for different encounters, as well as having the patience to do it, but I'm not gonna let that define me. It was a cool thing I did, but I imagine many people didn't care for the same experience and that's fine.
If you read some of the comments that LegendofTotalWar gets, you played the game wrong by cheesing :P Some people won't care if you play on really hard, if you cheese you cheat. Games have had this problem since forever. So many expect and demand that everyone else plays exactly the way THEY want. Which half of the time probably isn't even something the complainers are able to themselves. But completing Witcher 2 on Dark is impressive imo, good job. I could never do it, I found it way too hard. And it really slowed down what I was there for in the first place, the story.
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I did W2 on nightmare difficulty. And without cheesing... And I have the opposite of pride about that actually, I spent SOOOO MUCH time on this meaningless challenge, that I could have used in any other way... I love hard games, especially RPGs, because it forces me to interact with game systems more, but when its overdone, it really detracts from the experience. ALso sometimes you just want to try cool build, not the super minmaxed one.
I liked Bayonetta's approach to difficulty, where it was customisable. The easy mode made the bosses a bit slower and have less HP, but it also gave you an item that meant any random button presses would still perform a combo. I wanted the easier bosses but still wanted to do the combos myself, so took off the item.
How dare you don't you understand that you need to git gud. It sounds like you played to have fun I swear the audacity of some people. Don't you understand that you are skipping the experience of dying pointlessly over and over again and being stuck on this one thing for who knows how long?
99 times out of 100 I put it on whatever the intended difficulty from the developers is, which is typically normal. Because it's the balance of enough challenge to feel satisfied, but not bang my head against a wall until it breaks.
Jusst to pick an example in DA:O I made a build with the battle mage, that if not executed perfectly can have lots of struggles as you level up - i thought it was cool tho, so i preferred to do that rather going more vanilla. I was essentially locked against an enemy that could not let me go anywhere else, like a random encounter - it was not to progress, mind you, it was to go anywhere at all! Now, i could have redone hours of gameplay on a backup file, or hours to tryhard it, or i could just lower the difficulty one step. I did it, went back to camp, managed things differently, set back difficulty to hard, and resumed playing. So absolutely agree on your take, and i also add this - you engaged in the game in a deep way compared than a normal playthrought, more or less as i did, because we recognized something wonky to do and we thought it was fun. Because that's what the hobby may be. So not only complaining that lowering difficulty for a game is absurd, it's also pointless and counter-intuitive when done in this kind of context.
Difficulty in CRPGs is definitely not the same as difficulty in other games, either. In an RPG, there's a gulf of difference between a bad build and a good build; the former can dead-stop a playthrough at some point later down the line and a good one can enable you to beat the game at difficulties you otherwise wouldn't. So the only difference between playing on Easy vs. Hard is that Hard massively limits what kinds of playstyles you can actually use to successfully finish the game, and not knowing which of those playstyles actually works in the context OF the game at the outset can mean that you might literally have to start the entire game over because you got locked into a fight or a dungeon or something that's too hard to beat with your current build, party comp or gear set. At the end of the day, it's effectively a stat check; have you appropriately balanced the numbers of your party to progress the game? If no, then there's really no amount of skill that you can use to complete said game. At a certain point, it's basically just a test to see how loyal you were to a walkthrough. A highly skill-based RPG like Dark Souls can enable a good player beat the game without ever leveling up, but that's only by replacing the benefits of leveling up (i.e. higher stat bonuses) with better gear (i.e. higher equipment bonuses), and, of course, player skill. You cannot "out-skill" a game where the attacks are dice rolls; that's just not possible. If you're the kind of person who likes making extremely powerful builds in an RPG and then letting the game test your limits with really hard gameplay, that's great, but the other HALF of an RPG is the story it tells, and gating that behind high difficulty (i.e. a harder stat check) is just dumb. Dark Souls is an exception to this imo because difficulty is a core aspect of Dark Souls and I feel you're missing a core part of the experience if you disable that, but the devs clearly put an Easy mode in Dragon Age for a reason; if you want to use it, there's no reason not to.
Dragon Age has to have one of the worst encounter balancing in major RPGs, I don't know any other series where I toggled difficulty back and forth so much. Tho special mention to KOTOR 2 for two missions you're forced to play as Atton or Mira fighting bosses solo. Usually all grenades you saved entire game get spend there.
@@mittensbro To be fair, combat should always be adjusted to be challenging enough when speaking about RPG or party based games, because it is part of the story as well. For example, when you have a story based around tough situations, through which you need to persevere, you don't want to have combat be without any challenges. When you have dialogue choices, that help you avoid tough fights in exchange for losing rewards or being considered a jerk, it will matter only if the fight is well adjusted and hard. Having a proper, well built difficulty and combat encounters is essential to the story elements and players connection to it in so many little ways. Having your characters start winning tough fights or finding your favourite/MVP through those fights makes you appreciate the experience and setting more. By lowering difficulty down you can sometimes miss out on those aspects, which could separate a good game experience from a great one
Can confirm, I spent my early 20s priding myself on videogames... I then realised it was temporary and didn't lead to anything more than bits on a computer. Crushed me. But now I've got a much better ballanced life, 10/10 won't spend my life on a computer.
I have a rule with RPGs specifically, particularly old school RPGs, where if I hit a wall where I would have to grind levels I simply turn the difficulty down until I can just move on. A lot of RPGs, JRPGs especially, feel like better designed video games when I do it. Recommended for the other grown-ass-adults in the chat lol.
That's understandable. Personally I've never really had a problem grinding in JRPGs since most JRPGs tend to have simple combat that is easy to grind in and I can go on autopilot a bit while doing it. However, trying to grind in RPGs with more complex combat ends up feeling too much like a chore for me.
Not now but old games that weren't balanced properly did. Even Souls games don't have a meta that is basically required to beat the game. But in old games like DAO you should turn down the difficulty especially on 1st runs so you can enjoy organically playing the game.
I mean, harder difficulties are for those seeking a gameplay challanger, and to face the challange more optimized ways to play the game usually are required, more "meta" ways. I guess that's due to a different way of engaging with a game, some might have fun not only with the story of a game, but also with the mechanical side of it, testing and optimizing it. But there is nothing wrong with not caring about optimization or "the meta'. It usually takes time and its not something that everyone finds it fun. The problem is just some players thinking that their way of playing a game is "the right way" of playing that game.
Single player games always had a meta. There's no reason to follow it, especially if it's your first playthrough, but single player games always had a meta because every game has some efficient way of playing it or cheesing it, and it's mostly people on repeat playthroughs or speed runners that do that.
Baldur's Gate 1 meta is archery, you can defeat enemies you aren't supposed to by kiting at the point where one wolf makes a total party KO otherwise. NWN and other D&D games have a "Paladin" meta where people select a class with talking skills and okay tanking (because game over is only on main characters death) to have better STORY experience. SO Bioware decided to make all Jedi classes play as Paladin in KOTOR. It worked! One of easiest games ever but nobody complains. Mass Effect tried the same but had issues: Mass Effect is SIGNIFICANTLY harder as some classes and in OG Immunity was broken as hell but Barrier was bugged and didn't work, which made Infiltrator or Soldier OP. In Legendary that changed. Dragon Age decided to be all over the place in each game. DA2 difficulty was even worse. Veilguard gave up and made enemies scale with you and also added a detailed difficulty tweaking a-la BG3 so you can fine-tune stuff.
I rolled my eyes when you said you lowered the difficulty in the main video and didn't really agree that DAO is particularly hard game on normal difficulty, but otherwise I didn't really mind it. If it's too hard then it's too hard, god knows there are games I only ever finished on the easiest difficulty. I did get the impression you were rushing to finish the video while the topic of Dragon Age was still hot, though. That said, you defending yourself with "we don't all have time to play games on hard mode, there are some other things I'd rather do" _when it's literally your job_ feels... Not sure how to express this without sounding too harsh. Irritating? Entitled? I can't imagine myself halfassing my work assignment (one I volunteered for) and smugly replying to my boss when he points it out with "Eh, there were some other things I wanted to do".
I partially agree with some of what you're saying, but I've definitely done that last one. I'm a programmer (among other things), and I think I'm paid less than I'm worth. Sometimes, I don't feel like putting in more effort than I'm paid for, so I say "I had other things I was doing at the time, and there's more important things for me to work on now."
Anyone who gets mad over someone playing on easy mode misses the point of games. They are there to have fun, not struggle to the point of never finishing
And did you find all that out yourself the first game play without looking anything up? Ive got 1.8k in eldenring but i dont expect anyone to do half of what i remember or do untill at least 400-800 hours. Just weird ppl would expect the top way of playing from someone the dirst instances of them playing.
For playing I agree. Its just Josh makes reviews and restrospective about games and for those I think you should have at least an understanding on what the different difficulties do and experience them. Maybe people cant differentiate the parts where he does those to when he just plays games on stream ... but if he does at one point do a "was daggerfall actually good" video I would expect him to have played on normal by then and at least looked at the higher difficulties. You can only make the point of "playing on higher difficutlies isnt fun or worth it" if you actually did play on those.
On old games like DAO the harder difficults are more like extra content/new game plus. It's why a lot of games used to lock out difficulties on 1st runs. On a 1st run people should enjoy Origins for it's biggest strengths which are writing and trying the new things you find out. But for people that keep coming back to play it difficult adds something new. Dragon Age was never a combat first game. It could have card based combat and most fans wouldn't care as long as the writing and choices were good
I hate the people who try to push that if you play on anything other than the hardest difficulties you're not a "real gamer". It's absolutely ridiculous. Let people have fun the way they want to have fun.
I inflict self suffering by adding extra house rules to the point of ridiculousness on top of hardest, it is how I enjoy playing, but I find it odd that people get mad because other people play on easy or whatever. If someone just wants to say enjoy the story and cruise through the gameplay, that is their choice. Unhinged behavior to get mad at someone for enjoying something the way they do it.
I play the games on normal or hard only if i like the gameplay. And there's a few games where i consider gameplay to be actually enjoyable. Good story is always main preference 😂
The issue is Josh is very well known for praising Souls games for example for forcing you to "engage and get gud" at the game instead of zoning out and playing in auto pilot. So you can see how lowering the difficulty instead of changing his abysmal party composition felt contradictory to what the audience expected of him. Usually people lash out at their heroes when they feel they "failed them". Not the most rational thing but I have seen it happen in every field. Parasocial relationships suck 😂
I remember playing Dragon's Age: Origins on harder difficulties when I was young. I finished it, but it was not worth it. When I played God of War for the first time, I cranked the difficulty to "God of War" difficulty and went through the entire game. It took a lot longer than it should have, but I was having fun. I remember taking like 1 hour to just beat the First battle lol. I had time and was having fun. Some games like Dragon's Age are not worth it.
The new God of Wars are literally just time wasters on the higher difficulties though. The enemies become incredibly spongy. Problem with cRPG difficulties that stats are very meaningful and when they get increased suddenly you find yourself in a position that you need to start min maxing so your accuracy is good enough to hit the enemy. If you ever play the Pathfinder games ( Wrath is really good ) : do yourself a favour and dont even attempt at increasing the difficulty
@@AngRyGohan I felt like raising the difficulty forced me into using the game mechanics and stats into their limits. It was fun. Took a lot of time though. I don't have the patience to replay the game again though. Those cut scenes last for ages.
I completely agree that if there is an easy mode you should be able to pick it without feeling bad, but I will also add that devs should not feel it mandatory to add an easy mode to the game.
On the other hand the lack of easy mode introduces a new problematic variable: major mechanics which if you engage with makes the game easy, essentially making people who want the tiniest little challenge ( not even talking about very difficult here ) have to actively stop using said mechanics, which is dumb its not the players job to properly balance the game. Elden RIng did that spirit ashes, which is very much a major mechanic given how many you get as rewards
@AngRyGohan I love how much you guys rag on spirit ashes even though 90% of them die in two hits or get slapped around hard by bosses. There's only a handful of standout ashes that do well.
So in the original vid, I wrote how DAO was the first game I ever beat on the highest difficulty. What I didn't mention was that I started it on easy mode and worked my way up: One playthough on easy/norm, and one full nightmare. I'm now doing the same for BG3: Started on explorer, then balanced, and now I'm working to beat the game on tactician. Without those entry difficulties, I wouldn't feel as accomplished as I now do at learning the systems to the point that I see actual progress being made. In short, play the game the best way it works for you to enjoy it with what's provided. After all, that person who is playing it "wrong" might just grow to become better at it than you.
One thing that helps a lot with higher difficulties is knowing what you're going to encounter so you can adjust tactics for it. It seems a lot of people don't realize that not everyone goes into games having a extreme amount of knowledge about what classes / specs are busted and what awaits them at each encounter.
I have been playing games on easy mode now. Get to enjoy the story and beat the game and move on. There's way too many games now. I don't need the challenge.
Currently in the middle of my own Dragon Age: Origins playthrough and recently put the difficulty down to Easy. People getting upset about that is very funny to me.
I agree that getting genuinely mad about it is hilarious, but playing on easy mode definitely means you suck just a bit. I'd rather just joke to you about it, and then move on. Because in the end, honestly, who gives a shit? You're still bad, tho :P On the flip-side, people getting upset and irate because of jovial mockery (when it is actually jovial and not Twitter level of obscenity) are equally as hilarious.
This point about time is so important - especially on such a narrative game. Not everyone wants to be challenged when they play, not everyone has the time or energy in the tank to overcome a challenge to enjoy what a game has to offer. This is why, in my 30s and with an ever-shrinking pool of free time/energy, Elden Ring spat me right out - despite how much I wanted to like that game.
@ I loved it i went back and watched dream sequence number five with the crow like 10 different times after it happened just to hear the music and narration
BG1 is horribly unbalanced, the game EXPECTS you to cheese. Mods throw the balance out of whack but also let you fine tune the difficulty and get Ease of Use stuff (Enhanced already has containers and larger ammo stacks tho).
played the game back in school, started on normal and finished on easy. was a very enjoyable experience. so much so that I played on hard diffs after that
When I was younger, I was all about the hard mode challenge. I'm older now, I'm running out of time. I just want to enjoy the games and have fun, so 99% of the time it's easy/story mode and silly builds for me. Tripling a games run time for a difficulty mode just isn't worth it anymore unless I *truly* love the game and the challenge. I beat BG3 on honour mode because the game was that good and I wanted all the trophies... then I turned it back down a peg to go back to fun times and silly characters.
Considering most people never finish the majority of games they own, turning down the difficultly to finish a game is ahead of the curve. More games need a custom difficulty setting. I’m enjoying Veilguard with mostly Hard settings, V Hard enemy health, and Normal Parry/Dodge timing. Whatever lets me enjoy/finish the game, without pulling my hair out, and wasting too much time.
I love tuning difficulty. Especially if it’s for different systems. For example, I’m playing through Jedi Survivor without fall damage and it has made the game so much better. The parkour is really good 95% of the time, and janky the other 5%, and this takes the sting out of the 5%
The combat in Origins is not what makes the game good. I played it on harder difficulty settings when it came out. You can bet your bottom when I replayed it last month I had it on easy the entire time. I just want to see the story, not get bogged down in 15 year old combat systems.
Really? I have so much fun with it, but I usually play with mods. Maybe I need to play some newer games to better understand what you mean. Could you please point to me one or a few games similar to DAO that have a combat that you find enjoyable?
I still play Origins mostly on hard mode. I never tried Nightmare, I probably could if I learned some systems better. But I admit for the High Dragon fight I lower it down to normal. I don't have patience for long fights like that, and then to fail at the end and have to redo the whole thing.
@@entretenimentoVS BG3 or Divinity: Original Sin 2 are similar but in turn-based rather than real time with pause, in that they allow you to combine magical effects for interesting trigger effects and in that they allow you to treat fights as "puzzles" rather than twitch reflex reaction BS. DA:O already plays a bit like tabletop RPGs but in real time, but generally also functions better than older games like Neverwinter Nights or Baldur's Gate 2 because it was built for it from the start.
I did find it odd Josh didn't go get shale however. She's the most amusing NPC in DA:O, for me at least. And she has additional dialogue during her meeting with Caridin as well as after. Also replacing Alistar with Logain (it is essentially getting the man who was trying to kill you the whole way into your party) was quite an interesting experience, to say the least.
@Somebody374-bv8cd you find it odd that he didn’t get a optional companion when it was basically his first time playing where he didn’t have chat telling him how to play? Oh yeah very odd indeed /s
I'm a real advocate for NOT forcing devs to include an easy mode in in their games... I'm also a real advocate for LETTING people play their games on any difficulty they desire, including easy mode. The people who think that gaming is a hobby that should be reserved for the elite or believe that people shouldn't be allowed to play a game in a way that's different to them, are not real gamers. I wouldn't have the love for games that I do today if it weren't for my older brothers sharing their hobby with me. If I turned around and did the OPPOSITE of what they did for me, then I couldn't begin to describe what a dishonour to the title "gamer" I would be. People like that need to grow up. No, growing up doesn't mean stopping yourself from playing videogames, it means becoming open to the fact that your word isn't absolute.
Its so wild to me xD I have ALWAYS played Dragon Age on Easy mode when all I wanna do is...chill and enjoy the game.....if I WANT to have to think about each fight then yeah i turn that shit up but 9 times out of 10 im playing on Easy mode...I think the ONLY thing I was sad about in Josh's video is that....He ignored Multiple Companions never brought them to hear their party banter....and thus lost multiple companions xD and IMO got one of the Sadder worst endings for DA:O
There was a time growing up where I was restricted to playing games on normal or higher difficulty, but that was because my parents used it as a teaching opportunity, learning about perseverance and such. Now as an adult that's less of a concern, because like you said, times have changed and we just have less time for video games since that difficulty is essentially transferred from video games to real life. 😅
@@AAJillSandwich It's a very old game considering how long gaming itself has been around. It also doesn't really help that skyrim was more than a decade ago by now, and I'm sure the vast majority of the younger gamers don't even know what skyrim is, let alone morrowind.
@@AAJillSandwich Well,you can't deny the fact that Morrowind is far from popular right now.The only people I know who still play it _regularly_ are either superfans of Elder Scrolls or people who love playing old games in general and neither of those are in high supply right now.The only thing I can say for sure is that the lower player count does in no way correlate to the quality of the game however.
You should always play the game at the difficulty level that you are comfortable with If you start out at a high level, and you start to feel uncomfortable, lower the difficulty And if you decide to go back to a higher difficulty, good for you. If you decide that you want to challenge yourself, and you bump the difficulty - good luck, have fun I played Dishonored on the hardest difficulty, while achieving Mostly Flesh and Steel, Ghost and Clean Hands - because I wanted to. No one forced me to. And if someone had, I don't think I would've had the fun that I did
6:04 After hearing this perspective, I'd like to be Devil's advocate. Using this logic, what's stopping dishonest/biased game journalists who use easy mode to essentially button mash their way to victory? They would not have to interact with the game in it's entirety or a core part of the experience so this would cause an ultimately worse (or misleading) review score. Hoping to hear some other perspectives and get some discussion going.
As someone who loves challenging myself with hard games, I've found myself turning down the difficulty lately just so that I can actually get through playing all the games I haven't had time to even touch because there are just so many gems out there
I am an easy mode enthusiast, UNLESS there is an easiest mode OR, in the case of Elden Ring, there is a point to the increased difficulty. The vast majority of games treat difficulty as giving enemies more health and damage and that's that. Plus, I play video games for fun, to relax, not to show the world I'm a god-tier gamer and it's not my real-life job. Elden Ring was the exception, because I felt like after 30 years of playing video games, it was time for a challenge to mark the occasion.
As a gamer who enjoy getting challenged and get bored on easy modes. Everyone can play and enjoy the games AND their free time however they want. But I'm not watching Josh Strive Hayes videos because he is an "expert" at games, I just enjoy his casual player takes and he is entertaining.
I don't get to play much these days, but when I do I tend to play on easy or normal. Call me a casual, but once you start creating and caring for tiny humans there just isn't enough time in the day to get good.
While I have finished the game on Nightmare mode multiple times, I've also played it since it came out and got my butt blighted on easy mode on my first playthrough. No shame in playing however you need to to have fun and complete it!
I agree but there are games where the difficulty is the game because climbing through harder and harder "content" is the main point of the game. in these games you can either accept that you're stuck and walk away or power through and beat the game and it takes alot of strength to accept your own limitations and walk away
Exactly. In some games difficulty is part of the experience if for no other reason but immersion/narrative. One also has to concede that by turning easy mode on, you can skip engaging with many mechanics in the game or enemies has so low stats that the combat actually becomes not part of the game's experience which is a very silly thing for someone who wants to review the game.
Valid and reasonable points that I have to agree with. However some games aren't the same on easy because you don't have to learn the mechanics. I'm not saying you should play on Expert but some games on story mode will essentially remove most of the gameplay and video games aren't just story and graphics, there's also... gameplay. It creates different experiences within the same game that are hard to compare.
Honestly, I was just surprised you were struggling with those fights so much. You were playing a melee mage, but way different from mine. My battlemage was so OP it was also my main tank, though I was playing on normal. I noticed that the balance was pretty off, i.e. an easy to sustain buff gave me +75% to all resistances, and enemy fireballs in general being pretty busted. In fairness, I was spamming heals all the time, because it was kinda necessary, so I kinda get it.
I beat DAO on normal difficulty on my first blind playthrough. I have no idea how, because I tried it again like a decade later and got shat on the whole way. But more recently I entered the game as an attempt to full on make a party system (Tank/Healer/DPS/Backstabber) and using things like line of sight and stealthing behind the enemy ranged mobs with a rogue, and I had a lot of fun. It also became quite a lot easier. There is so much fun to be found playing a game the way you personally enjoy, and people just need to accept that. If it's in the game, the devs intended it to be used. It's not fair to complain when people use it.
Last I checked. Games are to be played for fun... Now fun is subjective of course. However games are also meant to be a mild element of challenge. if that difficulty that gives you the challenge and fun is "easy" for you. And you're having fun... then that is ok
There is some discussions to be had about reviewing a game after playing on easy mode. Like, I remember the part where Josh said "and you would never use combos after" or something similar, and I was like, what? And then I remembered that I played on the hardest difficulty and he on easy, and was kinda disappointed he missed that experience of combining cool spells. Still, I don't understand getting emotionat and harassing reviewer about it.
Absolutely agree with you. I don't dictate anyone how should they play games or spend their time. If I'm struggling with difficulty and don't have much time to spare and play the game for the story anyway, it shouldn't bother anyone. It's my time and my choice how I spend it. Even if others disagree :)
Eh, it depends on the game. Part of an RPG for example is seeing the growth of your character. If my character just can’t die and one shots everything because I’m on the easiest difficulty, the progression becomes completely pointless. However if I feel a difficulty setting is ruining my experience, I think it’s fine to turn it down.
Yeah i feel the same way. Almost everytime i see how easy mode plays in a game, its always the same thing: combat becomes not part of that games's experience and if you review your game like that then i know im literally being lied to because on easy they can just forgo using some core mechanics the game has.
I feel like the problem with the difficulty, for me personally, was that despite combat being less straineous and taking less time for him to finish it, all other aspects of the review were shallow. If Josh had focused on other aspects of the game more, shown more engagement with the game, maybe even completed the game a second time to get a different, fresh perspective, try different party/companions, nobody would have cared that much. I felt like I was watching quite an average review of the game that has a lot of depth and thought put into it. He usually likes engaging with game mechanics, every video he has usually mentions how stacking mechanics work wonders, but here he overlooked skill/spell combos, doesn't bother learning/using them or mentioning them more than in the beggining. That's only one example that comes to mind. Compared to his BG and Neverwinter Nights videos, It almost felt like he didn't care that much to dig deeper, both in combat and story elements of the game, which is a shame if that's true
Okay I'll give you that, for a guy whose reviews have "stacking mechanics" as a meme, ignoring spell combos, aka the one good thing about Dragon Age Origins combat, is a serious miss.
For me it's not so much the whole difficulty thing as the, Josh if a professional gamer( or supposed to be) for his videos. He's said it before in other videos of his like his God of War video when he refused to turn the difficulty down from hard when he was dieing a lot. So for me I expect a professional gamer to play the game well, if not damn good and take his time to really make it. The well life happened instead comes off as an excuse, everyone's got shit going on. But his channel and his choices.
i actually ended up turning down the difficulty on DA:V, the enemies are just bullet sponges and the way combat works it just isn't worth the time and energy to keep grinding that dull game. that said, i don't remember DA:O being hard enough to bother with turning down difficulty levels, and i think the main problem why josh struggled with it, was because he never discovered spell combos. those trivialize dragon age origins combat.
I saw someone played dragon quest 3 remake on easy and got hate too lol. I think only time its okay to be a little upset is if someone puts on easy then complains about it being boring or something
2:29 Don't be ridiculous Josh, my sense of self does not come from how good at video games I am... alone. It also comes from how good I am at painting tiny space nuns and little rat bois. And I don't wanna brag but there are like 5 models in the 2 armies I have where they eyes look OK
preach bro. the only exception i can think of is baldur's gate 1 & 2 after the update that came out a couple years ago where they made "story mode" which means your character literally cannot die
I can see younger players wanting that just to experience the story, but yeah as mentioned above there are let's plays on youtube if you want that. As someone who grew up (not literally as I was already an adult) on BG 1 and 2 I don't have the need to do that. I keep it on core rules (except when learning spells and leveling up LOL, yeah I cheese that). I know those game systems quite well, but I imagine younger players struggling to learn those game systems. They are quite different than any game today.
@Anders-vl6kk nahhhh like Josh said us older folks don’t have a lot of free time to play a lot of video games and when you’re older you start to realize how precious your time is, I prefer to enjoy the story now and not waste what little free time I have doing the same combat section for 30 minutes. In other words let people play how they wanna play and mind your business.
Yeah, Dragon Age does have some difficulty spikes. Did have to work up to the hardest difficulty. Often with a new game I start easy build up to the harder challenges.
This. I want games that want to have a hard mode to have a GOOD hard mode that hard mode players enjoy playing, (as opposed to just "normal mode, but tankier or something lame). But I ALSO want to have options to NOT play that hard mode, while missing out on as little as possible of the game's fun, story, and rewards. Easy mode should exist, and it shouldn't be a "punishment."
There's something super wrong with the PC version of the first Dragon Age. Despite being better to control, it's way, way, way harder than like the Xbox 360 version.
In the one nightmare run of Orgins I did, I basically ignored the entire entropy tree for mages because it's functionally useless due to enemies gaining huge resistances. CC in general is almost completely useless in nightmare outside of blood magic. To be fair to Orgins, cc abilities are generally made useless for most rpgs in higher difficulties. It's just one of the few that have an entire category of spells be cc abilities.
Ive got 1.8k hrs in eldenring across 10 characters. I dont expect anyone to do or remember half of what i remember or do untill at least 400-800 hours. Just weird ppl would expect the top way of playing from someone the first instances of them playing.
It's about what do you value in a game. Some people just want the story, some want a challenge and some both. It's called conflict of values. If you don't value challenge anymore but tell that to people who do then most will take that as an offense, not a different point of view.
It depends. Sometimes playing on hard adds a lot of good content, sometimes it takes away a lot of good content. It is not really a balancing act between having a life and playing the best version of a game. But this is also really a discussion between hard/extreme and normal. Their is normally not too much argument for easy, as it is almost always designed for someone who does not really know how a mouse/controller work. Easy is literally the Nintendo, let the game complete this level for you difficulty, it is not the I don't have time difficulty it is the I dont want to play a game I want to watch it be beaten difficulty. DA:O was released around the time when easy was very easy, but it is an RPG so I guess if you just made the least effective party possible maybe you would need to play it on easy? TL;DR: absolutely, you mostly should not be playing on a harder difficulty when it is making it take 10 times longer to play. But normally you need to play on at least normal for large swaths of the game to not be missing. But to reiterate, most games maximum difficulty is absolutely too far and takes away from the experience.
I like my difficult games, even well into my adult years. There's something fun about overcoming challenges. However, I have become significantly more aware of when a game confuses "difficulty" with "time spent." It's one thing if you need to land an extra hit on an enemy to bring them down, possibly making the fight take a few more seconds and giving them one more chance to attack back. It's another when the difference between "Normal" and "Hard" is the difference between cutting bamboo with a machete, and cutting down a century-old tree with a chainsaw. That's not the kind of difficulty change I want to see in a game. I want stuff more like MO:Astray putting more spiked walls/floors in the puzzles on the harder difficulties.
I turned the game the to easy TWICE because these boss battles where bullshit. The first was the dude after betraying him and not desecrating the ashes of andraste. Also The witch dlc final boss.
I love josh but what did the community think was going to happen from the guy who played sniper in mass effect 3 and then just punched everyone in the face! :D
As a Dragon Age fan the gameplay in the series was never its strongest suit. I understand just getting through gameplay to get to the drama and the roleplay elements of the game. And you have to be the game within a certain time frame and still cover the game thoroughly enough.
To me, it comes down to time and fun factor. I play most games on hard because I tend to enjoy them more that way. I have played games that had a great story and world, but the game play just sucked, so I put it on easy just to get through the bad parts faster and enjoy the good parts more.
It's not even just the time you lose when life gets busy, the lack of remaining mental energy to play something that requires focus and/or reactions is hard to keep up with when you are drained. Especially trying to stay relevant in a competitive game, I find it difficult to keep up when I don't play for a couple weeks.
i've always been a normal gamer. i default to normal in every single game and only change the difficulty if the game turns out to be too hard or way too easy.
If I was to play the original Witcher to get caught up to 2 and 3, I'd defiantly play on the easiest mode to get through the phonebook density of the game and there's games like Divinity: Dragon Commander where I kinda suck at RTS's but I love the political and social dialogue aspect to it, so I play on story mode and have my Generals fight for me.
honestly i wish the souls community would take that too heart. so many people seem to make "i beat hard game and did it in a way that makes it harder for me" their whole personality and i find that weird
played this originally for the ps3; so even on the highest difficulty I felt like it was a fair challenge for my new-to-crpg brain. I think people have definitely been getting too wrapped up in arguing over difficulty options in recent years, and it’s becoming a rather common issue for streamers and reviewers to have to deal with the complaints. On a side note: I own the PC version; since it goes on sale often, but I gave up the last time because of having to mod a lot of its current gen issues. Knowing how much of a difference the balance is between the versions also kinda makes me not want to bother lol
So I agree, in spirit, with what Josh is saying here, and I 100% agree that no one should ever be harassed or belittled for their choice to play a game on an easier difficulty, but I think there are a few things he said without, I think, considering the nuances of. Firstly, he says that no one should derive their self worth from video games. I would agree that they shouldn't base their entire self worth on video games, but do we honestly want to imply that people shouldn't feel proud of their accomplishments in a game? Should speedrunners take no pride in their accomplishments? Should professional athletes not feel pride in winning a tournament? I don't think he actually believes this, but the statement he made does indicate it, and I think he should have been a little more careful with making sure he was saying what he means. Secondly, he describes an easy mode as a faster way of playing the same game. This can be true, but in a lot of cases is far from it. Especially in RPGs, game systems can have a lot of interlocking systems and mechanics that only make sense to engage with on the harder difficulties. For this reason, there often is an optimal difficulty to get the best experience out of the game. This is not to say that everyone needs to play on that difficulty, but difficulty isn't always arbitrary, and sometimes, if someone recommends raising the difficulty, they may just be giving you good advice. Lastly, while everyone can play video games on the difficulty most fun for them, Josh is in a slightly different position as a content creator. He produces reviews, recommendations, and retrospectives. For all of these, his credibility is very important, and his credibility relies on him having a comprehensive understanding of the mechanics of the games he is talking about, at a variety of difficulties. I think a lot of the recent conflict between him and a portion of his community comes from the fact that his content has recently shifted more towards entertainment based streaming, rather than information based videos, and it is causing his older community to react poorly to the new content. Doing an all mage run of Dragon Age Origins, or an all melee run of Mass Effect 3 is perfectly fine for a person playing for fun, or a livestream of a challenge run, but they are not the core experience of a game, and performing them while researching for a review or retrospective will lead to a less useful video for the viewers, that may come off as disrespectful of the source material. I think Josh is going to have to think about what kind of content creator he wants to be, because trying to be both is creating conflict in his community. If he wants to be an entertainment streamer, that's perfectly fine, but he's going to lose the people who came for well researched insight. If he wants to be an informative video essayist, that's perfectly fine too, but he's going to have to get more serious with his research, and his streams will suffer for it.
If you're having fun, you're playing the game right.
Damn right 💯
He who rages at difficulty selections has forgotten the face of his father.
long days and pleasant nights, sai
Ka.
I do not type with my hand, I type with my mind.
@@dingleberryliespewer3177 Your name alone says it all xD
That's deep !!!
I never understand how some people figure that the rational thing to do is lambast someone via DMs for something so inconsequential.
It's called having no life
because they are not racional, they are just idiots
this is what happens when you have nothing going on your life that you need to constantly focus on what is going in other's lifes, add the over fixation on hobbies and you get this beautiful rant from people who think playing souls-like is a sustitute for a personality.
It is projection. Someone is unhappy with their lives so they need a reason to take out their anger.
It's because public figures have made the crucial error of admitting that they read their DMs.
I know a guy who discovered video games during his retirement. He always play on easy mode and yet he had a great time playing through the Mass Effect trilogy, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, etc. He just wants to be the hero in the story without having to deal with the mechanics.
If a game is actually DIFFERENT on hard mode, then I'd agree. 99 times out of 100 it's just enemy/player stat changes, that's the same game.
Well, it is. Enemies can steal items and gain immunity to damage types and so on. Though I don't see how that would change the overall experience so much to warrant any kind of outrage. DAO is mostly about the story and world building anyway.
I think a reviewer that only plays all games on easy isn't really equipped to talk about a game, but it doesn't really matter if they just can't finish it, that's their level as a player. It is slightly disingenous for him to say it's about the total hours put into a game, anyone can struggle through a hard game, that is true, learning a games mechanics doesn't take 100 hours.
Anyone getting annoyed at me for that feel free, I actually don't care. I'm in support of easy modes and all that, but I have a job too lol, and it's not professional video game streamer.
@@Spaced92 counterpoint; If the reviewer is transparent about their experience (I.E. started at normal, turned it down to easy midway) then it's your job as a consumer of said review to sift through "valid and invalid" criticism of the game.
"Game was too hard for me" - tells you something about their engagement with the systems, or how user friendly the systems are.
"Story was great" - is completely separate from the difficulty choice.
To be fair, when it is stat changes that could also mean that you need less strategy to beat the content, and that can make the game less engaging. There are valid reasons for people to enjoy higher difficulty in games, it isn't just people trying to flex their pp or whatever.
I strongly recommend against people playing Enemy Within or War Of The Chosen on lower difficulties than the second-highest because it's not "the same game but easier" it's a pretty radically different experience, in some ways isn't actually easier, and in a few ways actually makes the game take fucking LONGER to play.
I would never say anyone should ever play Half Life on Hard because why the hell would you play Half Life of all things where almost every single enemy can instakill you? That's just pointless.
As an adult, I cannot imagine wasting my free time or emotional energy to get upset with a stranger over the game difficulty they play on. Bizarre stuff.
Yeah sure, whatever you say Mr huge anus
There are some people who increase in age and yet do not increase in maturity :P
The reality is a lot of it is clearly performative anger to try and look like they have the biggest penis out there. Like all the people that lie about using summons in FromSoft games or how quickly they beat Celeste or Super Meat Boy. Play on whatever difficulty you find fun, because that's what we're all really here for: FUN. If you play games to stroke you weak ego, find another hobby.
Same. I can't imagine wasting any of my finite amount of shits on this.
Same
Also
"I'm gonna see my dogs."
Instant shutdown to all of this. Perfectly done, Josh. See those good boys/girls.
I washed the dishes by hand, instead of using the dishwasher. I completed the washing up on "hard mode". And I now have dishpan hands. 🤔
And cleaner dishes. Most dishwashers tend to miss some shit at a higher rate than handwashed (unless whoever's washing them by hand is a complete dongle, _Jared_ ), so maybe that's a bad analogy to use.
even though he put it on easy mode, his builds were making it harder too, so it balances out
My problem with this whole thing is that one of his complaints was difficulty. If that wasn't something that he had an issue with, then I wouldn't care. But his choice of party, choice of equipment, and ignoring one of the core mechanics of the game (magical primers) are what made the game difficult, not the difficulty choices and he was blaming the difficulty for his poor choices.
Back when I played Dragon Age Origins I was struggling with the default difficulty so I decided to play on easy instead. Ended up playing through the whole game and it's DLCs and really enjoying it, I've never regretted that decision once.
I play most RPG's on easy. I'm there for the story, not the combat.
The Golems DLC is for masochists, even on "easy" difficulty.
I did the same with Nier:Automata. Great game. Wonky combat. (Especially the hacking stuff)
NGL I actually decided to play dragon age origin before watching his video.
I got to the woods where you go out to get the blood and contracts. It was fine until I hit that bridge with the one mage enemy and I just had to drop difficulty down to easy.
It was so much bullshit as the mage runs away, you chase it into traps, while it nuke my party with some fire balls. At this point I can do nothing to counter it because my party is set and I have no access to most of the game mechanics.
This is just like one of those terrible game design moments.
@kopicat2429 I like a decent challenge sometimes but not always. I agree with you that the thing I enjoy most about RPGs is the story so if combat has to be eased up a bit so be it.
This is why I really appreciate something I've seen in some RPGs where you can set a separate difficulty level for normal encounters and boss fights. I want boss fights to be hard, but hard normal encounters can just become a slog sometimes.
Sounds like a design flaw if regualr battle are tedious on hard but boss battles are fine.
To be fair most games have phased out the need for exces normal encounters (for grinding/leveling for bosses ect).
I played The Witcher 2 on Dark (even though it's apparently not the hardest difficulty) and I'm proud for being able to come up with cheese strats for different encounters, as well as having the patience to do it, but I'm not gonna let that define me. It was a cool thing I did, but I imagine many people didn't care for the same experience and that's fine.
If you read some of the comments that LegendofTotalWar gets, you played the game wrong by cheesing :P Some people won't care if you play on really hard, if you cheese you cheat. Games have had this problem since forever. So many expect and demand that everyone else plays exactly the way THEY want. Which half of the time probably isn't even something the complainers are able to themselves.
But completing Witcher 2 on Dark is impressive imo, good job. I could never do it, I found it way too hard. And it really slowed down what I was there for in the first place, the story.
I did W2 on nightmare difficulty. And without cheesing... And I have the opposite of pride about that actually, I spent SOOOO MUCH time on this meaningless challenge, that I could have used in any other way...
I love hard games, especially RPGs, because it forces me to interact with game systems more, but when its overdone, it really detracts from the experience.
ALso sometimes you just want to try cool build, not the super minmaxed one.
Your alarm going off made my stomach drop lol. I use that same jingle when waking up for work, its my "leave now or you will be late" alarm.
I liked Bayonetta's approach to difficulty, where it was customisable. The easy mode made the bosses a bit slower and have less HP, but it also gave you an item that meant any random button presses would still perform a combo.
I wanted the easier bosses but still wanted to do the combos myself, so took off the item.
How dare you don't you understand that you need to git gud. It sounds like you played to have fun I swear the audacity of some people. Don't you understand that you are skipping the experience of dying pointlessly over and over again and being stuck on this one thing for who knows how long?
99 times out of 100 I put it on whatever the intended difficulty from the developers is, which is typically normal. Because it's the balance of enough challenge to feel satisfied, but not bang my head against a wall until it breaks.
Jusst to pick an example in DA:O
I made a build with the battle mage, that if not executed perfectly can have lots of struggles as you level up - i thought it was cool tho, so i preferred to do that rather going more vanilla. I was essentially locked against an enemy that could not let me go anywhere else, like a random encounter - it was not to progress, mind you, it was to go anywhere at all!
Now, i could have redone hours of gameplay on a backup file, or hours to tryhard it, or i could just lower the difficulty one step. I did it, went back to camp, managed things differently, set back difficulty to hard, and resumed playing.
So absolutely agree on your take, and i also add this - you engaged in the game in a deep way compared than a normal playthrought, more or less as i did, because we recognized something wonky to do and we thought it was fun. Because that's what the hobby may be.
So not only complaining that lowering difficulty for a game is absurd, it's also pointless and counter-intuitive when done in this kind of context.
Difficulty in CRPGs is definitely not the same as difficulty in other games, either. In an RPG, there's a gulf of difference between a bad build and a good build; the former can dead-stop a playthrough at some point later down the line and a good one can enable you to beat the game at difficulties you otherwise wouldn't. So the only difference between playing on Easy vs. Hard is that Hard massively limits what kinds of playstyles you can actually use to successfully finish the game, and not knowing which of those playstyles actually works in the context OF the game at the outset can mean that you might literally have to start the entire game over because you got locked into a fight or a dungeon or something that's too hard to beat with your current build, party comp or gear set. At the end of the day, it's effectively a stat check; have you appropriately balanced the numbers of your party to progress the game? If no, then there's really no amount of skill that you can use to complete said game. At a certain point, it's basically just a test to see how loyal you were to a walkthrough.
A highly skill-based RPG like Dark Souls can enable a good player beat the game without ever leveling up, but that's only by replacing the benefits of leveling up (i.e. higher stat bonuses) with better gear (i.e. higher equipment bonuses), and, of course, player skill. You cannot "out-skill" a game where the attacks are dice rolls; that's just not possible.
If you're the kind of person who likes making extremely powerful builds in an RPG and then letting the game test your limits with really hard gameplay, that's great, but the other HALF of an RPG is the story it tells, and gating that behind high difficulty (i.e. a harder stat check) is just dumb. Dark Souls is an exception to this imo because difficulty is a core aspect of Dark Souls and I feel you're missing a core part of the experience if you disable that, but the devs clearly put an Easy mode in Dragon Age for a reason; if you want to use it, there's no reason not to.
Dragon Age has to have one of the worst encounter balancing in major RPGs, I don't know any other series where I toggled difficulty back and forth so much.
Tho special mention to KOTOR 2 for two missions you're forced to play as Atton or Mira fighting bosses solo. Usually all grenades you saved entire game get spend there.
@@mittensbro To be fair, combat should always be adjusted to be challenging enough when speaking about RPG or party based games, because it is part of the story as well. For example, when you have a story based around tough situations, through which you need to persevere, you don't want to have combat be without any challenges. When you have dialogue choices, that help you avoid tough fights in exchange for losing rewards or being considered a jerk, it will matter only if the fight is well adjusted and hard. Having a proper, well built difficulty and combat encounters is essential to the story elements and players connection to it in so many little ways. Having your characters start winning tough fights or finding your favourite/MVP through those fights makes you appreciate the experience and setting more. By lowering difficulty down you can sometimes miss out on those aspects, which could separate a good game experience from a great one
Can confirm, I spent my early 20s priding myself on videogames... I then realised it was temporary and didn't lead to anything more than bits on a computer.
Crushed me.
But now I've got a much better ballanced life, 10/10 won't spend my life on a computer.
I have a rule with RPGs specifically, particularly old school RPGs, where if I hit a wall where I would have to grind levels I simply turn the difficulty down until I can just move on. A lot of RPGs, JRPGs especially, feel like better designed video games when I do it. Recommended for the other grown-ass-adults in the chat lol.
That's understandable. Personally I've never really had a problem grinding in JRPGs since most JRPGs tend to have simple combat that is easy to grind in and I can go on autopilot a bit while doing it. However, trying to grind in RPGs with more complex combat ends up feeling too much like a chore for me.
Singleplayer Games have a meta now? Oh Boy... Why? Thats you time, save from competition.
Not now but old games that weren't balanced properly did. Even Souls games don't have a meta that is basically required to beat the game. But in old games like DAO you should turn down the difficulty especially on 1st runs so you can enjoy organically playing the game.
I mean, harder difficulties are for those seeking a gameplay challanger, and to face the challange more optimized ways to play the game usually are required, more "meta" ways.
I guess that's due to a different way of engaging with a game, some might have fun not only with the story of a game, but also with the mechanical side of it, testing and optimizing it.
But there is nothing wrong with not caring about optimization or "the meta'. It usually takes time and its not something that everyone finds it fun. The problem is just some players thinking that their way of playing a game is "the right way" of playing that game.
Single player games always had a meta. There's no reason to follow it, especially if it's your first playthrough, but single player games always had a meta because every game has some efficient way of playing it or cheesing it, and it's mostly people on repeat playthroughs or speed runners that do that.
Baldur's Gate 1 meta is archery, you can defeat enemies you aren't supposed to by kiting at the point where one wolf makes a total party KO otherwise.
NWN and other D&D games have a "Paladin" meta where people select a class with talking skills and okay tanking (because game over is only on main characters death) to have better STORY experience.
SO Bioware decided to make all Jedi classes play as Paladin in KOTOR. It worked! One of easiest games ever but nobody complains. Mass Effect tried the same but had issues:
Mass Effect is SIGNIFICANTLY harder as some classes and in OG Immunity was broken as hell but Barrier was bugged and didn't work, which made Infiltrator or Soldier OP. In Legendary that changed.
Dragon Age decided to be all over the place in each game. DA2 difficulty was even worse. Veilguard gave up and made enemies scale with you and also added a detailed difficulty tweaking a-la BG3 so you can fine-tune stuff.
I rolled my eyes when you said you lowered the difficulty in the main video and didn't really agree that DAO is particularly hard game on normal difficulty, but otherwise I didn't really mind it. If it's too hard then it's too hard, god knows there are games I only ever finished on the easiest difficulty. I did get the impression you were rushing to finish the video while the topic of Dragon Age was still hot, though.
That said, you defending yourself with "we don't all have time to play games on hard mode, there are some other things I'd rather do" _when it's literally your job_ feels... Not sure how to express this without sounding too harsh. Irritating? Entitled? I can't imagine myself halfassing my work assignment (one I volunteered for) and smugly replying to my boss when he points it out with "Eh, there were some other things I wanted to do".
I partially agree with some of what you're saying, but I've definitely done that last one.
I'm a programmer (among other things), and I think I'm paid less than I'm worth. Sometimes, I don't feel like putting in more effort than I'm paid for, so I say "I had other things I was doing at the time, and there's more important things for me to work on now."
Anyone who gets mad over someone playing on easy mode misses the point of games. They are there to have fun, not struggle to the point of never finishing
And did you find all that out yourself the first game play without looking anything up?
Ive got 1.8k in eldenring but i dont expect anyone to do half of what i remember or do untill at least 400-800 hours.
Just weird ppl would expect the top way of playing from someone the dirst instances of them playing.
And some draw their fun of struggeling to the point of self hatred, which is totaly fine too.
What if the difficulty itself is a part of the artistic vision of the game's director? Should they be forced/pressured into including an easy mode?
@@ebeneezerswashbuckle3509 Which is why options exist.
For playing I agree. Its just Josh makes reviews and restrospective about games and for those I think you should have at least an understanding on what the different difficulties do and experience them. Maybe people cant differentiate the parts where he does those to when he just plays games on stream ... but if he does at one point do a "was daggerfall actually good" video I would expect him to have played on normal by then and at least looked at the higher difficulties. You can only make the point of "playing on higher difficutlies isnt fun or worth it" if you actually did play on those.
On old games like DAO the harder difficults are more like extra content/new game plus. It's why a lot of games used to lock out difficulties on 1st runs. On a 1st run people should enjoy Origins for it's biggest strengths which are writing and trying the new things you find out. But for people that keep coming back to play it difficult adds something new. Dragon Age was never a combat first game. It could have card based combat and most fans wouldn't care as long as the writing and choices were good
If it had card based combat I would either love it or hate it, and given the release year it's more likely that I'd hate it.
I hate the people who try to push that if you play on anything other than the hardest difficulties you're not a "real gamer". It's absolutely ridiculous. Let people have fun the way they want to have fun.
Its like losing a war and than claiming it doesnt count cause the other side was dishonorable.
I inflict self suffering by adding extra house rules to the point of ridiculousness on top of hardest, it is how I enjoy playing, but I find it odd that people get mad because other people play on easy or whatever. If someone just wants to say enjoy the story and cruise through the gameplay, that is their choice. Unhinged behavior to get mad at someone for enjoying something the way they do it.
I play the games on normal or hard only if i like the gameplay. And there's a few games where i consider gameplay to be actually enjoyable. Good story is always main preference 😂
Okay but if I do that how will I feel better about my miserable existence?
The issue is Josh is very well known for praising Souls games for example for forcing you to "engage and get gud" at the game instead of zoning out and playing in auto pilot.
So you can see how lowering the difficulty instead of changing his abysmal party composition felt contradictory to what the audience expected of him.
Usually people lash out at their heroes when they feel they "failed them". Not the most rational thing but I have seen it happen in every field. Parasocial relationships suck 😂
I remember playing Dragon's Age: Origins on harder difficulties when I was young. I finished it, but it was not worth it.
When I played God of War for the first time, I cranked the difficulty to "God of War" difficulty and went through the entire game. It took a lot longer than it should have, but I was having fun. I remember taking like 1 hour to just beat the First battle lol.
I had time and was having fun. Some games like Dragon's Age are not worth it.
The new God of Wars are literally just time wasters on the higher difficulties though. The enemies become incredibly spongy. Problem with cRPG difficulties that stats are very meaningful and when they get increased suddenly you find yourself in a position that you need to start min maxing so your accuracy is good enough to hit the enemy. If you ever play the Pathfinder games ( Wrath is really good ) : do yourself a favour and dont even attempt at increasing the difficulty
@@AngRyGohan I felt like raising the difficulty forced me into using the game mechanics and stats into their limits. It was fun. Took a lot of time though. I don't have the patience to replay the game again though. Those cut scenes last for ages.
I completely agree that if there is an easy mode you should be able to pick it without feeling bad, but I will also add that devs should not feel it mandatory to add an easy mode to the game.
On the other hand the lack of easy mode introduces a new problematic variable: major mechanics which if you engage with makes the game easy, essentially making people who want the tiniest little challenge ( not even talking about very difficult here ) have to actively stop using said mechanics, which is dumb its not the players job to properly balance the game. Elden RIng did that spirit ashes, which is very much a major mechanic given how many you get as rewards
@@AngRyGohan What an asinine take, homie.
@AngRyGohan I love how much you guys rag on spirit ashes even though 90% of them die in two hits or get slapped around hard by bosses. There's only a handful of standout ashes that do well.
So in the original vid, I wrote how DAO was the first game I ever beat on the highest difficulty. What I didn't mention was that I started it on easy mode and worked my way up: One playthough on easy/norm, and one full nightmare.
I'm now doing the same for BG3: Started on explorer, then balanced, and now I'm working to beat the game on tactician.
Without those entry difficulties, I wouldn't feel as accomplished as I now do at learning the systems to the point that I see actual progress being made.
In short, play the game the best way it works for you to enjoy it with what's provided. After all, that person who is playing it "wrong" might just grow to become better at it than you.
One thing that helps a lot with higher difficulties is knowing what you're going to encounter so you can adjust tactics for it. It seems a lot of people don't realize that not everyone goes into games having a extreme amount of knowledge about what classes / specs are busted and what awaits them at each encounter.
I have been playing games on easy mode now. Get to enjoy the story and beat the game and move on. There's way too many games now. I don't need the challenge.
Currently in the middle of my own Dragon Age: Origins playthrough and recently put the difficulty down to Easy.
People getting upset about that is very funny to me.
I agree that getting genuinely mad about it is hilarious, but playing on easy mode definitely means you suck just a bit. I'd rather just joke to you about it, and then move on. Because in the end, honestly, who gives a shit? You're still bad, tho :P On the flip-side, people getting upset and irate because of jovial mockery (when it is actually jovial and not Twitter level of obscenity) are equally as hilarious.
This point about time is so important - especially on such a narrative game. Not everyone wants to be challenged when they play, not everyone has the time or energy in the tank to overcome a challenge to enjoy what a game has to offer. This is why, in my 30s and with an ever-shrinking pool of free time/energy, Elden Ring spat me right out - despite how much I wanted to like that game.
I played Baldur's Gate 1 on story mode..im not gonna play it again on harder difficulty because I had no idea what i was doing. I'm a scrub for life.
Did you enjoy the story? That's the important part.
@ I loved it i went back and watched dream sequence number five with the crow like 10 different times after it happened just to hear the music and narration
BG1 is horribly unbalanced, the game EXPECTS you to cheese. Mods throw the balance out of whack but also let you fine tune the difficulty and get Ease of Use stuff (Enhanced already has containers and larger ammo stacks tho).
played the game back in school, started on normal and finished on easy. was a very enjoyable experience. so much so that I played on hard diffs after that
When I was younger, I was all about the hard mode challenge. I'm older now, I'm running out of time. I just want to enjoy the games and have fun, so 99% of the time it's easy/story mode and silly builds for me.
Tripling a games run time for a difficulty mode just isn't worth it anymore unless I *truly* love the game and the challenge. I beat BG3 on honour mode because the game was that good and I wanted all the trophies... then I turned it back down a peg to go back to fun times and silly characters.
Considering most people never finish the majority of games they own, turning down the difficultly to finish a game is ahead of the curve.
More games need a custom difficulty setting. I’m enjoying Veilguard with mostly Hard settings, V Hard enemy health, and Normal Parry/Dodge timing. Whatever lets me enjoy/finish the game, without pulling my hair out, and wasting too much time.
I love tuning difficulty. Especially if it’s for different systems. For example, I’m playing through Jedi Survivor without fall damage and it has made the game so much better. The parkour is really good 95% of the time, and janky the other 5%, and this takes the sting out of the 5%
The combat in Origins is not what makes the game good. I played it on harder difficulty settings when it came out. You can bet your bottom when I replayed it last month I had it on easy the entire time. I just want to see the story, not get bogged down in 15 year old combat systems.
Really? I have so much fun with it, but I usually play with mods. Maybe I need to play some newer games to better understand what you mean. Could you please point to me one or a few games similar to DAO that have a combat that you find enjoyable?
I still play Origins mostly on hard mode. I never tried Nightmare, I probably could if I learned some systems better. But I admit for the High Dragon fight I lower it down to normal. I don't have patience for long fights like that, and then to fail at the end and have to redo the whole thing.
@@entretenimentoVS BG3 or Divinity: Original Sin 2 are similar but in turn-based rather than real time with pause, in that they allow you to combine magical effects for interesting trigger effects and in that they allow you to treat fights as "puzzles" rather than twitch reflex reaction BS. DA:O already plays a bit like tabletop RPGs but in real time, but generally also functions better than older games like Neverwinter Nights or Baldur's Gate 2 because it was built for it from the start.
I did find it odd Josh didn't go get shale however. She's the most amusing NPC in DA:O, for me at least. And she has additional dialogue during her meeting with Caridin as well as after.
Also replacing Alistar with Logain (it is essentially getting the man who was trying to kill you the whole way into your party) was quite an interesting experience, to say the least.
@Somebody374-bv8cd you find it odd that he didn’t get a optional companion when it was basically his first time playing where he didn’t have chat telling him how to play? Oh yeah very odd indeed /s
Yeah Imma be real, I don't talk about playing games at this point cause I watch people play video games while I do other stuff.
2:53 This is great general life advice in any facet.
I'm a real advocate for NOT forcing devs to include an easy mode in in their games...
I'm also a real advocate for LETTING people play their games on any difficulty they desire, including easy mode.
The people who think that gaming is a hobby that should be reserved for the elite or believe that people shouldn't be allowed to play a game in a way that's different to them, are not real gamers. I wouldn't have the love for games that I do today if it weren't for my older brothers sharing their hobby with me. If I turned around and did the OPPOSITE of what they did for me, then I couldn't begin to describe what a dishonour to the title "gamer" I would be. People like that need to grow up. No, growing up doesn't mean stopping yourself from playing videogames, it means becoming open to the fact that your word isn't absolute.
Its so wild to me xD I have ALWAYS played Dragon Age on Easy mode when all I wanna do is...chill and enjoy the game.....if I WANT to have to think about each fight then yeah i turn that shit up but 9 times out of 10 im playing on Easy mode...I think the ONLY thing I was sad about in Josh's video is that....He ignored Multiple Companions never brought them to hear their party banter....and thus lost multiple companions xD and IMO got one of the Sadder worst endings for DA:O
There was a time growing up where I was restricted to playing games on normal or higher difficulty, but that was because my parents used it as a teaching opportunity, learning about perseverance and such. Now as an adult that's less of a concern, because like you said, times have changed and we just have less time for video games since that difficulty is essentially transferred from video games to real life. 😅
Josh is just a streamer version of Sseth with how he only plays old,long forgotten games live and I'm here for it.
Is Morrowind really forgotten :(
It is old
@@AAJillSandwich It's a very old game considering how long gaming itself has been around. It also doesn't really help that skyrim was more than a decade ago by now, and I'm sure the vast majority of the younger gamers don't even know what skyrim is, let alone morrowind.
@@AAJillSandwich Well,you can't deny the fact that Morrowind is far from popular right now.The only people I know who still play it _regularly_ are either superfans of Elder Scrolls or people who love playing old games in general and neither of those are in high supply right now.The only thing I can say for sure is that the lower player count does in no way correlate to the quality of the game however.
there is literally no similarity between sseth and josh whatsoever
You should always play the game at the difficulty level that you are comfortable with
If you start out at a high level, and you start to feel uncomfortable, lower the difficulty
And if you decide to go back to a higher difficulty, good for you. If you decide that you want to challenge yourself, and you bump the difficulty - good luck, have fun
I played Dishonored on the hardest difficulty, while achieving Mostly Flesh and Steel, Ghost and Clean Hands - because I wanted to. No one forced me to. And if someone had, I don't think I would've had the fun that I did
The biggest flexes are not from Josh's muscles, but his words. Like right at the end there.
6:04 After hearing this perspective, I'd like to be Devil's advocate.
Using this logic, what's stopping dishonest/biased game journalists who use easy mode to essentially button mash their way to victory?
They would not have to interact with the game in it's entirety or a core part of the experience so this would cause an ultimately worse (or misleading) review score.
Hoping to hear some other perspectives and get some discussion going.
As someone who loves challenging myself with hard games, I've found myself turning down the difficulty lately just so that I can actually get through playing all the games I haven't had time to even touch because there are just so many gems out there
4:42 Khajiit spotted
They are everywhere
Ye are now dubbed Josh Strife "Easy Boi" Hayes!!!!
;)
I am an easy mode enthusiast, UNLESS there is an easiest mode OR, in the case of Elden Ring, there is a point to the increased difficulty. The vast majority of games treat difficulty as giving enemies more health and damage and that's that. Plus, I play video games for fun, to relax, not to show the world I'm a god-tier gamer and it's not my real-life job. Elden Ring was the exception, because I felt like after 30 years of playing video games, it was time for a challenge to mark the occasion.
Didn't even use the real easy mode in Dragon Age, which is casting Mass Prison and turning the enemies off.
Okay I’m here; I heard I’m supposed to be mad at you about something stupid
As a gamer who enjoy getting challenged and get bored on easy modes. Everyone can play and enjoy the games AND their free time however they want. But I'm not watching Josh Strive Hayes videos because he is an "expert" at games, I just enjoy his casual player takes and he is entertaining.
I don't get to play much these days, but when I do I tend to play on easy or normal. Call me a casual, but once you start creating and caring for tiny humans there just isn't enough time in the day to get good.
While I have finished the game on Nightmare mode multiple times, I've also played it since it came out and got my butt blighted on easy mode on my first playthrough. No shame in playing however you need to to have fun and complete it!
I agree but there are games where the difficulty is the game because climbing through harder and harder "content" is the main point of the game. in these games you can either accept that you're stuck and walk away or power through and beat the game and it takes alot of strength to accept your own limitations and walk away
Exactly. In some games difficulty is part of the experience if for no other reason but immersion/narrative. One also has to concede that by turning easy mode on, you can skip engaging with many mechanics in the game or enemies has so low stats that the combat actually becomes not part of the game's experience which is a very silly thing for someone who wants to review the game.
I play an RPG for the story and the writing I’m not playing it for the combat. Let people play how they wanna play.
Valid and reasonable points that I have to agree with. However some games aren't the same on easy because you don't have to learn the mechanics. I'm not saying you should play on Expert but some games on story mode will essentially remove most of the gameplay and video games aren't just story and graphics, there's also... gameplay. It creates different experiences within the same game that are hard to compare.
Honestly, I was just surprised you were struggling with those fights so much. You were playing a melee mage, but way different from mine. My battlemage was so OP it was also my main tank, though I was playing on normal. I noticed that the balance was pretty off, i.e. an easy to sustain buff gave me +75% to all resistances, and enemy fireballs in general being pretty busted. In fairness, I was spamming heals all the time, because it was kinda necessary, so I kinda get it.
I beat DAO on normal difficulty on my first blind playthrough.
I have no idea how, because I tried it again like a decade later and got shat on the whole way.
But more recently I entered the game as an attempt to full on make a party system (Tank/Healer/DPS/Backstabber) and using things like line of sight and stealthing behind the enemy ranged mobs with a rogue, and I had a lot of fun. It also became quite a lot easier.
There is so much fun to be found playing a game the way you personally enjoy, and people just need to accept that. If it's in the game, the devs intended it to be used. It's not fair to complain when people use it.
Last I checked. Games are to be played for fun... Now fun is subjective of course. However games are also meant to be a mild element of challenge. if that difficulty that gives you the challenge and fun is "easy" for you. And you're having fun... then that is ok
There is some discussions to be had about reviewing a game after playing on easy mode. Like, I remember the part where Josh said "and you would never use combos after" or something similar, and I was like, what? And then I remembered that I played on the hardest difficulty and he on easy, and was kinda disappointed he missed that experience of combining cool spells.
Still, I don't understand getting emotionat and harassing reviewer about it.
Absolutely agree with you. I don't dictate anyone how should they play games or spend their time. If I'm struggling with difficulty and don't have much time to spare and play the game for the story anyway, it shouldn't bother anyone. It's my time and my choice how I spend it. Even if others disagree :)
Eh, it depends on the game. Part of an RPG for example is seeing the growth of your character. If my character just can’t die and one shots everything because I’m on the easiest difficulty, the progression becomes completely pointless.
However if I feel a difficulty setting is ruining my experience, I think it’s fine to turn it down.
Yeah i feel the same way. Almost everytime i see how easy mode plays in a game, its always the same thing: combat becomes not part of that games's experience and if you review your game like that then i know im literally being lied to because on easy they can just forgo using some core mechanics the game has.
Do we play RPGs for the combat... or the story? Because only one of them is affected by difficulty level.
As an adult easy and normal is the best way to play a game promptly and move on with the rest of your day.
I feel like the problem with the difficulty, for me personally, was that despite combat being less straineous and taking less time for him to finish it, all other aspects of the review were shallow.
If Josh had focused on other aspects of the game more, shown more engagement with the game, maybe even completed the game a second time to get a different, fresh perspective, try different party/companions, nobody would have cared that much. I felt like I was watching quite an average review of the game that has a lot of depth and thought put into it. He usually likes engaging with game mechanics, every video he has usually mentions how stacking mechanics work wonders, but here he overlooked skill/spell combos, doesn't bother learning/using them or mentioning them more than in the beggining. That's only one example that comes to mind.
Compared to his BG and Neverwinter Nights videos, It almost felt like he didn't care that much to dig deeper, both in combat and story elements of the game, which is a shame if that's true
Okay I'll give you that, for a guy whose reviews have "stacking mechanics" as a meme, ignoring spell combos, aka the one good thing about Dragon Age Origins combat, is a serious miss.
For me it's not so much the whole difficulty thing as the, Josh if a professional gamer( or supposed to be) for his videos. He's said it before in other videos of his like his God of War video when he refused to turn the difficulty down from hard when he was dieing a lot. So for me I expect a professional gamer to play the game well, if not damn good and take his time to really make it. The well life happened instead comes off as an excuse, everyone's got shit going on. But his channel and his choices.
i actually ended up turning down the difficulty on DA:V, the enemies are just bullet sponges and the way combat works it just isn't worth the time and energy to keep grinding that dull game. that said, i don't remember DA:O being hard enough to bother with turning down difficulty levels, and i think the main problem why josh struggled with it, was because he never discovered spell combos. those trivialize dragon age origins combat.
I play PC-Games since I'm 4 years old and I play them often on Easy or cheese them to be easy and I'm proud of it! :D
It’s your painting that you’ve purchased. You use it however you like.
I saw someone played dragon quest 3 remake on easy and got hate too lol. I think only time its okay to be a little upset is if someone puts on easy then complains about it being boring or something
2:29 Don't be ridiculous Josh, my sense of self does not come from how good at video games I am... alone. It also comes from how good I am at painting tiny space nuns and little rat bois. And I don't wanna brag but there are like 5 models in the 2 armies I have where they eyes look OK
I love you, you filthy casual
preach bro. the only exception i can think of is baldur's gate 1 & 2 after the update that came out a couple years ago where they made "story mode" which means your character literally cannot die
Why? I don't care how other people play games at all. I don't have time for that.
@@vxicepickxv because its a silly, ridiculous gameplay option. if you dont want to die then you might aswell use cheat engine or something
@@Anders-vl6kk or just watch a video on youtube at that point.
I can see younger players wanting that just to experience the story, but yeah as mentioned above there are let's plays on youtube if you want that. As someone who grew up (not literally as I was already an adult) on BG 1 and 2 I don't have the need to do that. I keep it on core rules (except when learning spells and leveling up LOL, yeah I cheese that). I know those game systems quite well, but I imagine younger players struggling to learn those game systems. They are quite different than any game today.
@Anders-vl6kk nahhhh like Josh said us older folks don’t have a lot of free time to play a lot of video games and when you’re older you start to realize how precious your time is, I prefer to enjoy the story now and not waste what little free time I have doing the same combat section for 30 minutes. In other words let people play how they wanna play and mind your business.
Agree with Josh for the most part except I beat Heart of Darkness without dying and that 100% makes me better than everyone 😂
Yeah, Dragon Age does have some difficulty spikes.
Did have to work up to the hardest difficulty. Often with a new game I start easy build up to the harder challenges.
This. I want games that want to have a hard mode to have a GOOD hard mode that hard mode players enjoy playing, (as opposed to just "normal mode, but tankier or something lame). But I ALSO want to have options to NOT play that hard mode, while missing out on as little as possible of the game's fun, story, and rewards. Easy mode should exist, and it shouldn't be a "punishment."
I enjoyed listening to your dragon age origin video while playing factorio.
There's something super wrong with the PC version of the first Dragon Age. Despite being better to control, it's way, way, way harder than like the Xbox 360 version.
In the one nightmare run of Orgins I did, I basically ignored the entire entropy tree for mages because it's functionally useless due to enemies gaining huge resistances. CC in general is almost completely useless in nightmare outside of blood magic.
To be fair to Orgins, cc abilities are generally made useless for most rpgs in higher difficulties. It's just one of the few that have an entire category of spells be cc abilities.
Ive got 1.8k hrs in eldenring across 10 characters.
I dont expect anyone to do or remember half of what i remember or do untill at least 400-800 hours.
Just weird ppl would expect the top way of playing from someone the first instances of them playing.
It's about what do you value in a game. Some people just want the story, some want a challenge and some both. It's called conflict of values. If you don't value challenge anymore but tell that to people who do then most will take that as an offense, not a different point of view.
It depends. Sometimes playing on hard adds a lot of good content, sometimes it takes away a lot of good content. It is not really a balancing act between having a life and playing the best version of a game.
But this is also really a discussion between hard/extreme and normal. Their is normally not too much argument for easy, as it is almost always designed for someone who does not really know how a mouse/controller work. Easy is literally the Nintendo, let the game complete this level for you difficulty, it is not the I don't have time difficulty it is the I dont want to play a game I want to watch it be beaten difficulty.
DA:O was released around the time when easy was very easy, but it is an RPG so I guess if you just made the least effective party possible maybe you would need to play it on easy?
TL;DR: absolutely, you mostly should not be playing on a harder difficulty when it is making it take 10 times longer to play. But normally you need to play on at least normal for large swaths of the game to not be missing. But to reiterate, most games maximum difficulty is absolutely too far and takes away from the experience.
I like my difficult games, even well into my adult years. There's something fun about overcoming challenges. However, I have become significantly more aware of when a game confuses "difficulty" with "time spent." It's one thing if you need to land an extra hit on an enemy to bring them down, possibly making the fight take a few more seconds and giving them one more chance to attack back. It's another when the difference between "Normal" and "Hard" is the difference between cutting bamboo with a machete, and cutting down a century-old tree with a chainsaw. That's not the kind of difficulty change I want to see in a game. I want stuff more like MO:Astray putting more spiked walls/floors in the puzzles on the harder difficulties.
I turned the game the to easy TWICE because these boss battles where bullshit. The first was the dude after betraying him and not desecrating the ashes of andraste. Also The witch dlc final boss.
some strange strange ppl hatin on the goat
I love josh but what did the community think was going to happen from the guy who played sniper in mass effect 3 and then just punched everyone in the face! :D
I turn down the difficulty on games the second they start taking the piss. The games 50 hours long already and I’ve got shit to do.
I did exactly the same thing in da:o. Combat was such a slog, i just wanted to get to the next witty convo as fast as possible
holy shit is that hugh jackman
As a Dragon Age fan the gameplay in the series was never its strongest suit. I understand just getting through gameplay to get to the drama and the roleplay elements of the game. And you have to be the game within a certain time frame and still cover the game thoroughly enough.
To me, it comes down to time and fun factor. I play most games on hard because I tend to enjoy them more that way. I have played games that had a great story and world, but the game play just sucked, so I put it on easy just to get through the bad parts faster and enjoy the good parts more.
It's not even just the time you lose when life gets busy, the lack of remaining mental energy to play something that requires focus and/or reactions is hard to keep up with when you are drained. Especially trying to stay relevant in a competitive game, I find it difficult to keep up when I don't play for a couple weeks.
i've always been a normal gamer. i default to normal in every single game and only change the difficulty if the game turns out to be too hard or way too easy.
I don’t blame you for turning it down. Higher difficulties can be brutal, and that’s on top of having to review it in a timely manner.
Blood magic was amazing in this game.
If I was to play the original Witcher to get caught up to 2 and 3, I'd defiantly play on the easiest mode to get through the phonebook density of the game and there's games like Divinity: Dragon Commander where I kinda suck at RTS's but I love the political and social dialogue aspect to it, so I play on story mode and have my Generals fight for me.
Sometimes I look at twitch chats scrolling so fast and wonder what the purpose is, no one is going to read all that
honestly i wish the souls community would take that too heart. so many people seem to make "i beat hard game and did it in a way that makes it harder for me" their whole personality and i find that weird
To this day I'll never understand people who throw a tantrum about other people playing games how they feel like it
I felt bad turning Stellar Blade down to easy when I wasn't having fun with certain difficult bosses, just due to social pressures like this.
played this originally for the ps3; so even on the highest difficulty I felt like it was a fair challenge for my new-to-crpg brain. I think people have definitely been getting too wrapped up in arguing over difficulty options in recent years, and it’s becoming a rather common issue for streamers and reviewers to have to deal with the complaints.
On a side note: I own the PC version; since it goes on sale often, but I gave up the last time because of having to mod a lot of its current gen issues. Knowing how much of a difference the balance is between the versions also kinda makes me not want to bother lol
I did Alatreon in Monster Hunter World solo. I also played Metaphor Refantazio on easy. Both is fine imo.
So I agree, in spirit, with what Josh is saying here, and I 100% agree that no one should ever be harassed or belittled for their choice to play a game on an easier difficulty, but I think there are a few things he said without, I think, considering the nuances of.
Firstly, he says that no one should derive their self worth from video games. I would agree that they shouldn't base their entire self worth on video games, but do we honestly want to imply that people shouldn't feel proud of their accomplishments in a game? Should speedrunners take no pride in their accomplishments? Should professional athletes not feel pride in winning a tournament? I don't think he actually believes this, but the statement he made does indicate it, and I think he should have been a little more careful with making sure he was saying what he means.
Secondly, he describes an easy mode as a faster way of playing the same game. This can be true, but in a lot of cases is far from it. Especially in RPGs, game systems can have a lot of interlocking systems and mechanics that only make sense to engage with on the harder difficulties. For this reason, there often is an optimal difficulty to get the best experience out of the game. This is not to say that everyone needs to play on that difficulty, but difficulty isn't always arbitrary, and sometimes, if someone recommends raising the difficulty, they may just be giving you good advice.
Lastly, while everyone can play video games on the difficulty most fun for them, Josh is in a slightly different position as a content creator. He produces reviews, recommendations, and retrospectives. For all of these, his credibility is very important, and his credibility relies on him having a comprehensive understanding of the mechanics of the games he is talking about, at a variety of difficulties. I think a lot of the recent conflict between him and a portion of his community comes from the fact that his content has recently shifted more towards entertainment based streaming, rather than information based videos, and it is causing his older community to react poorly to the new content. Doing an all mage run of Dragon Age Origins, or an all melee run of Mass Effect 3 is perfectly fine for a person playing for fun, or a livestream of a challenge run, but they are not the core experience of a game, and performing them while researching for a review or retrospective will lead to a less useful video for the viewers, that may come off as disrespectful of the source material. I think Josh is going to have to think about what kind of content creator he wants to be, because trying to be both is creating conflict in his community. If he wants to be an entertainment streamer, that's perfectly fine, but he's going to lose the people who came for well researched insight. If he wants to be an informative video essayist, that's perfectly fine too, but he's going to have to get more serious with his research, and his streams will suffer for it.